Glory Ho

We’d planned on it. Swapped passports in Israel and avoided stamps in Jordan to be sure they’d let us in. Astonished fellow backpackers with our overland plans. Explained how we’d avoid Darfur and Juba. Researched the visa situation. Found the cost of a ferry along the river Nile from Aswan to Wadi Halfa. But in the end, we skipped the Sudan.

It wasn’t because of any potential violence or unrest. In fact, we’d decided to cover the northeastern quarter of this dividing nation, which would put us hundreds of miles from potential conflict. No, it wasn’t the danger. It was because we’d simply had enough Arabs. Enough desert. Because no one had raved about the Sudan. Because the distance to cover was almost as big as where we’d gone in the past six months. Because we weren’t excited about the freshwater-less, 55 hour train ride and it wasn’t worth it just to say: We went through the Sudan.

For the first fifteen minutes of the flight from Cairo to Nairobi, we sat next to African human rights activist extraordinaire John Prendergast. He seemed to have been born with gray hair and introductions rolled off this pseudo-famous guy’s tongue a lot like they do Bono’s—with scratchy, unrehearsed and modest rumble. After his last few projects, which happen to include, ahem, Brad Pitt, Don Cheadle, the Clinton Administration and Obama, (something called Not on Our Watch–ring a bell?) he was now on how way to save the Sudan. Unfortunately, for the first time, rebels had attacked the capital, Khartoum, our original destination. While the rebels know full well they could not overtake the government’s army, and its strictly a “symbolic” move, this detail may have seemed irrelevant (and unbearable) when we’d have found ourselves stuck in the desert for days due to transportation lockdowns and excessive checkpoints.

Crisis avoided.

Instead, we were about to enter Kenya. Goodbye birkas, hello baboons.